Protective eye wear such as sunglasses and safety glasses have conventionally been made of glass and, more recently, of plastic. In most instances there are separate lens pieces, frame members, and temples. The lens pieces are secured in the frame members as individual items.
In some instances there have been provided sunglasses, safety glasses, and goggles having a single lens piece for covering both eyes. However, in some of these products there are separate frame members in which the lens piece must be secured or carried. In other of such products there is a frame integral with the lens piece, but these products must be injection molded using a liquid plastic. As a result, the frames are inherently thicker than the lens piece due to the nature of injection molding techniques.
This means that the optical clarity is different in the frame portion than it is in the lens portion of the eye wear. This accordingly limits the effective field of vision of the user. Also, no provision is made for adjustment of nose supports or pads. The thicker frames also add more weight to the product. The injection molding process is also rather expensive.
An eye shield or guard is described in U.S. Pat. No. 540,746 which includes two lens pieces (one for each eye) which are connected together by a flexible strip of cloth in the center above the nose. This two-piece construction is an inherently weak design which does not provide significant protection against frontal impact. Further, peripheral vision is impaired due to the presence of the connecting flexible strip.
Also, the back side of the eye shield of the patent is pulled against the skin of the wearer by an elastic cord and this is very cosmetically undesirable. Also, the edges of the shield may absorb sweat or other liquids, thereby rendering the contact with the face soggy and potentially irritating. Furthermore, the cushion at the edges of the shield impair peripheral vision. Also, the lack of temples is undesirable. The eye shield is not cosmetically appealing.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,562,319 describes goggles which are intended for stereoscopic viewing and are severely limited for use as safety eyewear or for cosmetic use. The face shield portion is made of two separate pieces which are adhered together in an overlapping manner with a cement. As a result the product does not provide significant protection against frontal impact. Indeed, the product is not suitable as safety wear; rather, it is intended for use in viewing stereoscopic motion pictures. The two lens pieces are planar (i.e., flat) and therefore would allow foreign materials to easily enter the eyes from either side or the bottom or the top. Because the lens pieces are flat and are overlapping in the center, there is much distortion inherent in the product. Further, there is no provision for nose pads or nose supports in the product. As a result, the product could not be worn for very long without discomfort or pain.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,715,223 describes a pair of goggles which are a molded plastic material. This molding is very expensive and complex due to tooling requirements and inherent limitations as to quantity of product which can be produced simultaneously. The molding process limits the manufacturing capability and does not readily enable decorative embellishment of the product. This product is not suitable for use as sunglasses. It requires use of a head strap to hold it in place. Further, the lens piece is a separate piece from the frame member.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,261,652 describes an adjustable length temple for use on sunglasses. The lenses are tinted but include horizontal elliptical slots. The entire product can be made as an integral unit by means of molding. This requires injecting heated liquid plastic into a mold where it cools. Due to limitations of the molding process, the thickness and the radii of the product are greater than desired. The cost and slow speed of manufacture are other disadvantages of the product. Also, molded products are inherently more difficult and expensive to provide with decorative embellishments, as they must be applied to each pair separately. Furthermore, lenses with slits or slots therein do not provide adequate protection from ultraviolet radiation, for example. The use of extra lenses over the slits result in a multi-piece construction which is subject to breakage, leaking (e.g., rain), and additional cost and complexity of manufacture.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,538 describes safety spectacles which are molded so as to provide a one piece front face piece. Due to inherent limitations of the molding process, the resulting product is heavier and more costly than desired. The molding process is inherently limited as to speed also because the heated plastic must cool before the product can be removed from the mold. Also, the number of pieces which can be formed at one time is limited to the number of molds which have been made.
Prior art wrap around or curved sunglasses and safety glasses may be categorized as: (1) those that are assembled from many separate parts (i.e., lenses, frames, side shields, brow shield, hinges, temples), (2) those that are molded using heated liquid plastic forced into a mold, (3) those that have two-piece face shields which are hinged or overlapping, and (4) those that have a rubbery frame which molds to facial curves. All of these types of products have inherent limitations and disadvantages.
Molded products are inherently limited in their ability to be provided with decorative embellishments. If any such embellishments are desired, they must be applied to the product in some manner after the product has been formed and then removed from the mold. This is expensive and also cumbersome. The molding process also makes the application and use of scratch-resistant coatings more expensive because such coatings must be applied to the product in an individual manner, thereby increasing labor and time requirements.
There has not heretofore been provided a protective eyewear product having the advantages of the present invention.